A Peek Through the Curtain

Rating:
Summary: "A Peek Into Reality"
Review: Even though I was born and raised in Detroit, I found this book to be very enlightening. The trials and tribulations of Grayson Starks and his friend, Paul Proudberry, on the streets of Detroit were very real and true. Many Black people lived and still live in this manner.

When the author described the characters' experiences in the inner city, their exposure to the political system (both good and bad) and the riots in 1967, I relived every moment. Never have I read a book that has kept me so riveted.

I found this novel to be an intriguing and extraordinary engrossing read with a compelling powerful story, not only of Black and White relationships, but of other ethnic groups' dynamics in the United States. It keeps the reader looking forward to the next page, hoping it will not be the last. It is a page turner. The author is truly on his way. I can't wait for his next book. In the mean time, I will reread this one.

Rating:
Summary: "A Peek Into Reality"
Review: Even though I was born and raised in Detroit, I found this book to be very enlightening. The trials and tribulations of Grayson Starks and his friend, Paul Proudberry, on the streets of Detroit were very real and true. Many Black people lived and still live in this manner.

When the author described the characters' experiences in the inner city, their exposure to the political system (both good and bad) and the riots in 1967, I relived every moment. Never have I read a book that has kept me so riveted.

I found this novel to be an intriguing and extraordinary engrossing read with a compelling powerful story, not only of Black and White relationships, but of other ethnic groups' dynamics in the United States. It keeps the reader looking forward to the next page, hoping it will not be the last. It is a page turner. The author is truly on his way. I can't wait for his next book. In the mean time, I will reread this one.

Rating:
Summary: My God - Somebody call Oprah.
Review: Oh my God. Where is oprah? Tell her that this is the novel that will raise the bar in American Literature for the next Millennium.

The author has written a first-rate book that provokes as well as educates the reader. It is written simply, and you know the author made it up, but you also know it to be real.

I grew-up in a small New England town, that had more chickens than people. It wasn't until I attended college, that I had real contact with minorities. In short, I was unaware of racial injustices and prejudices, such as the Starks family endured while living in the poor, black ghetto of Detroit, Michigan.

'A Peek Through The Curtain: A trilogy', provides an educational adventure, no, an odyssey for those less, or not at all, acquainted with the sub-culture in America, I mean Black-America, whose citizens have suffered under the terrible yoke of discrimination, in a land of great beauty but with even greater prejudices.

This novel is unlike any I've ever read. The author takes the reader step by step, year by year from the 1920's to the 1980's, tracing two Blacks, Grayson Starks and Paul Proudberry who start out poor as dirt and dumber than dumb, and emerge, years later, rich and powerful. One corrupted by the system, the other unsullied. Sounds familiar? Well, that's just the beginning. Not content with depicting the hopes and fears of one generation, he builds on that to show us the complexities confronting the next two generations, all the time redirecting our focus on the plight of the Japanese-Amrican and Cuban-American and weaves them into a nightmare of a plot.

An excellent book for all to read.

Rating:
Summary: My God - Somebody call Oprah.
Review: Oh my God. Where is Oprah? Tell her that this is the novel that will raise the bar in American Literature for the next Millennium.

The author has written a first-rate book that provokes as well as educates the reader. It is written simply, and you know the author made it up, but you also know it to be real.

I grew-up in a small New England town, that had more chickens than people. It wasn't until I attended college, that I had real contact with minorities. In short, I was unaware of racial injustices and prejudices, such as the Starks family endured while living in the poor, black ghetto of Detroit, Michigan.

'A Peek Through The Curtain: A trilogy', provides an educational adventure, no, an odyssey for those less, or not at all, acquainted with the sub-culture in America, I mean Black-America, whose citizens have suffered under the terrible yoke of discrimination, in a land of great beauty but with even greater prejudices.

This novel is unlike any I've ever read. The author takes the reader step by step, year by year from the 1920's to the 1980's, tracing two Blacks, Grayson Starks and Paul Proudberry who start out poor as dirt and dumber than dumb, and emerge, years later, rich and powerful. One corrupted by the system, the other unsullied. Sounds familiar? Well, that's just the beginning. Not content with depicting the hopes and fears of one generation, he builds on that to show us the complexities confronting the next two generations, all the time redirecting our focus on the plight of the Japanese-Amrican and Cuban-American and weaves them into a nightmare of a plot.

An excellent book for all to read.

Rating:
Summary: The Power of Mind to Conquer Obstacles and Bureaucracies
Review: This author knows what he is writing about and he does it with an engaging and graphic style.

The book is about two young Blacks who migrate to Detroit Michigan from the South of the 1920's. Combatting racism from every side, each one takes a different style in dealing with their environment. The authors tracks the lives of the two different men and their families in such fashion as to reveal in colorful detail the intricacies and difficulties involved in life for Black Americans through the 1920's and into the 1980's. One son and grandson become Mayors of Detroit. The other's son, Paul, in a strange twist, becomes a mayoral assistant, setting off a remarkable turn of events.

The author, having observed and written about Black and White relationships then proceeds to introduce other ethnic groups into the plot and shows how each, while facing fomidable obstacles, either beats them down, or is beaten down. An unusually heart breaking part of the triology is the description of the incarceration of the Japanese-American during World War II, and the impact of their internment, specifically on two Nises (Japanese-American born) children.

Through out the trilogy, the reader will think that the author can do nothing more to shock or panic the reader --- then enter the characters of - Judge Hammond, C-square, Lemon, J.J. and Mr. Well-Hung. In my mind, these are five of the best characterizations to be read in American literature todate. The interaction of these five characters makes me feel that the author OWES the readers a sequel -- so as not to leave us hanging! This is a task he should find fairly simple, after having written such an extra-ordinary book!

Rating:
Summary: An absorbing trilogy on man's inhumanity towards man.
Review: This Trilogy spans six decades, from 1920 to 1980. The setting is in Detroit, Michigan and records the experiences of two young Blacks, Grayson Starks and Paul Proudberry, who migrate from the South in 1920. The reader will live the shocking, nightmarish, outrageous and heartwarming experiences of their lives as new-comers to the promised land.

The first book, 'Up Jumped The Canaille', is a story of Grayson and his love for Justina, who he meets on the streets of Detroit and their mutual love of education and of Paul and his tragic response to racial discrimination.

The second book in the trilogy, 'Only Two Ways To Live', follows Grayson's son, Charles Starks, now Mayor of Detroit and portrays the emotional and political climates in Detroit and the nation over Affirmative Action. Mayor Starks's time in office is shortly after the 1967 riots, up to the time when the City's population becomes approximately 70 percent Black. Charles finds both success and tragedy in his implementation of the City's Affirmative Action policy, and particularly its impact upon the White bureaucracy, especially the Fire, Police and Personnel Department.

The third book in the trilogy, 'Lives Of Tears', follows the three grandchildren of Grayson and Justina when events in their lives spin out of control. The reader is taken beyond the boundaries of Black and White discrimination in the United States and hurdles them into situations of betrayal and murder based on the increasingly controversial subjects of reparations for Japanese-American and the anti-Cuban sentiment towards Fidel Castro's supporters.

'A Peek Through The Curtain', is a multi-generational trilogy that is replete with divided loyalties and ever conflicting ambitions as Blacks and other minorities, fight for a place at the table. As Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', has St. Claire say to his cousin, Miss Ophelia's outrage against slavery: 'Come, cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the Fates; you've only seen a peek through the curtain,- a specimen of what is going on, the world over, in some shape or other'.